Taylor Bennett is set to release his new project BE YOURSELF on July 12. The goal of the EP is to create a roundtable discussion, starting with the lead single’s provocative cover art featuring the barely clothed Chicago rapper. To speak about the project and facilitate a conversation about the relationship between the LGBTQ community and hip-hop, Bennett sits down with Genius' Rob Markman and writer and author Myles E. Johnson on the latest episode of For The Record.

“I wanted to put myself out there on a platform, because I wanted to be judged,” Bennett tells Genius about the title track’s artwork. “Even if you’re homophobic and you say, ‘Hey man, that shit gay.’ You got to talk about it. You got to say some shit like that, and your homie got to step up possibly and be like, ‘Man, bro don’t say that shit to me, my cousin gay.”

The conversation also focuses on the influence of gay culture on pop culture. “What we really need to do is be honest about black history and art, and start recognizing that even before hip-hop came along, that queer people have always been a part of black art,” Johnson states. “Because I feel like sometimes in hip-hop we pretend like it’s new, or we pretend like all this is some weird shit, but I’m like no, it’s not like we’ve been on this.”

“I think very often people make the misunderstanding that there’s a disconnection between the LGBTQ community and hip-hop,” Bennet adds. “But there’s a much larger gap, I think, with the LGBTQ community and black people. Even though we used to march in civil rights, I think mainstream media … the idea for me, and I’m sure possibly for you, but for me the reason why I didn’t come out for so long was because I knew that as a black man I was already a second class citizen.”